Bringing your favorite foods off your screen and on to your plate

Scooby Doo, Where Are You!

There aren’t a whole lot of shows out there that left an impression on me as strong as Scooby Doo, Where Are You! Most of my favorite things today are: cartoons, mysteries, dogs, and food. Coincidence? I think not. There’s no way I could watch that show over and over and not take something from it. Whether I turned on my TV morning, noon, or night, Scooby Doo was on. For me, Scooby-Doo easily became synonymous with Cartoon Network. And I guess I’m not the only one who thought that. (How else did he get elected President?)

Another Scooby Doo influence is that even though I’m a fraidy cat, I love legends about ghosts and monsters. If I heard someone talk about a haunted mansion, zombie, or outer space ghost in the area, I’d be the second person on the scene. (I’d need the first person to use as a shield.) I’d try to stay out of trouble, but with my luck I’d end up just like Shaggy and Scooby and come face to face with the ghost/monster/scary thing. Either that or I’d end up getting trapped or something, like “Danger Prone Daphne”, or losing my glasses somewhere, like Velma. I share the worst traits with the members of Mystery, Inc., so they probably wouldn’t let me join. But I can be persuaded with food too, so maybe they actually would. Shaggy and Scooby seem to have the most fun anyway. I’d just stick with them and pass the time eating strange, big sandwiches, like Shaggy’s Jaw-Stretcher Special. Yeah, chocolate sauce on a meatloaf and bologna sandwich is odd, but it beats a sardine and marshmallow fudge one.

Recipe makes 1 sandwich.

Ingredients

You can add any amount of stuff to your sandwich, but here’s kind of a guideline:

3 slices Bologna

3 slices Meatloaf

1 slice Swiss Cheese

1 slice Cheddar Cheese

1 leaf Lettuce

The following can’t actually be seen on the sandwich, so they are optional:

Tomatoes

Green Olives

Ketchup

Mustard

Mayonnaise

5 Slices of Wheat Sandwich Bread Or

Bread:

½ cup warm water (105-115 degrees F)

1 ¼ teaspoons yeast

½ tablespoon sugar

½ cup, plus 2 tablespoons milk, room temperature

1 ½ tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon salt

¼ cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened and cut into chunks

2 ½ cups whole wheat flour

1 Bottle of Chocolate Syrup Or

Chocolate Syrup:

1 cup water

2 cups sugar

1 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

1 tablespoon light corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

Bread:

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in the warm water. Let it rest for 5-10 minutes, or until foamy. In a large bowl, combine whole wheat flour and salt. Add yeast mixture, milk, and honey and stir to combine. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in the butter. Once the butter is fully incorporated, continue kneading the dough for 8 minutes. Form the dough into a ball and place in a large, clean bowl. Lightly coat dough with oil and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise in a warm place for 1 ½ to 2 hours or until it has doubled in size. Punch down the dough and shape into a loaf. Place the dough into a greased 9-inch loaf pan, cover, and let rise for an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Bake loaf for 30 minutes. Place the pan on a cooling rack and let rest for 5 minutes. Turn the bread out and let rest on the rack until completely cooled. Slice.

Chocolate Syrup:

In a medium saucepan, combine water, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt. Bring to a boil and whisk until sugar, cocoa powder, and salt dissolve. Whisk in the corn syrup and vanilla extract. Allow the cocoa mixture to simmer until it has slightly thickened, whisking occasionally. Remove mixture from heat and cool completely.

Putting It All Together:

Tomatoes, green olives, ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise can be added to any layer of the sandwich but the top.

Place down a slice of bread. Add a slice of Swiss cheese and top with another piece of bread. Add a lettuce leaf and two slices of meatloaf. Top with another slice of bread and place two slices of bologna on top of that. Add another slice of bread and a slice of cheddar cheese. Cover that with one more slice of bread, a slice of bologna, and a slice of meatloaf. Drench the sandwich in chocolate syrup. Now it’s ready to be eaten!

Okay, I’ve got strange tastes, I know. But this is a really good sandwich. Plus it’s super fun to eat. It’s difficult to get everything in one bite and this one’s tiny compared to some of the sandwiches Shaggy makes. And this one is an absolute mess. Now so am I. I got syrup everywhere and had trouble getting through my sandwich because I couldn’t stop laughing. See, even after all these years, Scooby Doo, Where Are You! still makes me laugh. I don’t think I’ll ever find the “Recipe For My Love” of this series (I know, wrong episode, but I couldn’t resist.) but the recipe for this sandwich is close enough.